Offshore Leaks

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Group structure and statistics of "Gourmet Master Co. Ltd.", as of 31 December 2017, with hyperlinks to the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database. Cf. usage instructions for this interactive SVG at the file's description page on Wikimedia Commons. Group structure and statistics of "Gourmet Master Co. Ltd.", as of 31 December 2017 - [Kai Man Mei Shi Da Ren Gu Fen You Xian Gong Si ] De Ji Tuan Jia Gou Ji Tong Ji ,Jie Zhi 2017Nian 12Yue 31Ri .svg
Group structure and statistics of “Gourmet Master Co. Ltd.”, as of 31 December 2017, with hyperlinks to the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database.
Cf. usage instructions for this interactive SVG at the file's description page on Wikimedia Commons.

Offshore Leaks is a report disclosing details of 130,000 offshore accounts that came out in April 2013. Some observers have called it the biggest hit against international tax fraud of all times (to date), although it has been pointed out that normal businesses may use the offshore legislation to ease formalities in international trade. [1] [2]

Contents

The report originated from the Washington D.C.-based investigative journalism nonprofit, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), who collaborated with reporters around the world to produce the series of investigative reports published in connection with ICIJ's The Global Muckraker . [3] The investigation is based on a cache of 2.5 million secret records about the offshore assets of people from 170 countries and territories, obtained by ICIJ's director, Gerard Ryle. [2]

The ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database is headed with the cautionary paragraph: "There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly." More than 100 journalists from more than 60 countries and dozens of news organizations have taken part in the investigation, which has since expanded to include revelations about the offshore holdings of China's business and political elites.

People

Imee Marcos, daughter of the former Philippine president Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, is on the list. Philippine authorities are investigating if the money is part of the 5 billion dollars with which Marcos fled from the country in the 1980s. [2] Also on the list are the family of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, former Prime Minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili, Olga Shuvalov (the wife of former Russian First Vice Premier Igor Shuvalov), Deputy Director of the Board of Gazprom Valeriy Golubev, and Ukrainian oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Dmytro Firtash. [4]

Kazi Zafarullah, a relative of Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and his wife are shareholders of two offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands. [5]

Reactions

A German politician, Peer Steinbrück, has called for harsh penalties for the banks involved in the scandal, up to revoking their licenses. [6] ICIJ reports that the series of stories has sparked "official investigations, sweeping policy changes and high-profile resignations" around the world, with the European Union's top tax official calling Offshore Leaks “the most significant trigger” behind Europe's new push to crack down on offshore hideaways and global tax dodging. [7] “We're in a completely different context today” because of the Offshore Leaks revelations, Belgium's secretary of state said. “It’s a new world.” [7]

IBC consultant Ryan Mohanlal responded that each enterprise, holding, corporation or entity which is registered has its own reasons for doing so and that there are legitimate reasons to incorporate in this form.[ citation needed ]

In Brazil, ICIJ's criteria for selecting journalists has been criticized for lack of transparency. The journalists chosen by ICIJ are part of media conglomerates that could potentially have connections with offshore account owners. Claims that UOL (a joint venture between Grupo Abril and Folha de S. Paulo) and O Globo (from military dictatorship backers Grupo Globo) journalists might pick and disclose names according to political bias rather than public interest eventually led investigative reporter Amaury Ribeiro Jr. to leave the ICIJ. [8]

Primary data

As of 15 June 2013 a searchable database which includes part of the data is available under the URL http://offshoreleaks.icij.org/. So far the full primary data set has not been made publicly available.

There is no known connection between the ICIJ "Offshore Leaks" and "WikiLeaks".

Investigations

By July 2021, the Government of India identified undeclared assets worth of about ₹ 11,010 crore (US$1.4 billion) following the investigation. [9]

See also

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Gerard Ryle is an Irish-Australian investigative reporter who has written on subjects including politics, financial and medical scandals, and police corruption. From 2011, he has been director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which has published research on international tax evasion and money laundering, citing the leaked Panama Papers, Paradise Papers and Pandora Papers.

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Mossack Fonseca 1977–2018 Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider

Mossack Fonseca & Co. was a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider. At one time it was the world's fourth-largest provider of offshore financial services. From its 1977 foundation until the April 2016 publication of the Panama Papers, it remained mostly obscure, even though it sat at the heart of the global offshore industry and acted for about 300,000 companies. More than half were registered in British tax havens, as well as in the United Kingdom.

Swiss Leaks 2015 expose of tax avoidance scheme

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Panama Papers 2016 document leak scandal

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that were published beginning on April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, former Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca.

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The Bahama Leaks are 1.3 million internal files from the company register of the Bahamas. After the release of the Panama Papers in 2016, an unknown source handed over internal data from the national corporate registry of the Bahamas to Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, who analyzed them with the help of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). At the same time, ICIJ, Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners published detailed reporting before they published an online database of offshore entities.

Panama Papers (South America)

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.

The Mauritius Leaks were the report of a datajournalistic investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2019 about how the former British colony Mauritius has transformed itself into a thriving financial centre and tax haven.

Panama Papers (Europe)

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.

Panama Papers (Asia)

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.

Panama Papers (North America)

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.

Panama Papers (Africa)

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.

Pandora Papers 2021 leak of financial documents

The Pandora Papers are 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published beginning on 3 October 2021. The leak exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime ministers, and heads of state as well as more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, and business leaders. The news organizations of the ICIJ described the document leak as their most expansive exposé of financial secrecy yet, containing documents, images, emails and spreadsheets from 14 financial service companies, in nations including Panama, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, surpassing their previous release of the Panama Papers in 2016, which had 11.5 million confidential documents. At the time of the release of the papers, the ICIJ said it is not identifying its source for the documents.

References

  1. ↑ "Riesiger Datensatz enthüllt Geheimgeschäfte in Steueroasen". Zeit. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 "Secret Files Expose Offshore's Global Impact". ICIJ. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  3. ↑ ICIJ The Global Muckraker 2013
  4. ↑ Offshore Leaks, The Ukrainian Week (14 April 2013)
  5. ↑ AL leader’s family set up offshore cos, New Age (Bangladesh) (16 July 2013)
  6. ↑ "Geschäfte in Steueroasen: Steinbrück fordert härtere Strafen für Banken". Spiegel. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  7. 1 2 "Release of offshore records draws worldwide response". International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 5 April 2013.
  8. ↑ "HSBC: Amaury Ribeiro Jr. deixa o Comitê de Jornalistas Investigativos - Viomundo - O que você não vê na mídia". 19 February 2015.
  9. ↑ Choudhary, Shrimi (26 July 2021). "Govt detects undisclosed income of Rs 20,078 crore in Panama Leak". Business Standard India. Retrieved 4 October 2021.

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